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2010-2011 newsletter

art & art department chair update // 2 history sage art center // 3 seniors in // 5 rochester.edu/college/aah senior thesis // 6 interview: david walsh // 9 hartnett gallery // 11 faculty updates // 14 visual & cultual director’s update // 17 studies interview: rachel haidu // 18 rochester.edu/college/aah/vcs theatres of memory // 21 faculty updates // 23 the “on-film” series // 25 student updates //26

in the news // 30 etc. awards // 31

organization: alicia guzman copy editing: janet berlo design & layout: jenn bratovich

1 the department of art & art history department chair update

by allen topolski art & art history department chair

In my studio I consciously surround myself with objects from which I can draw both meaning and material for my art production. The accumulation there, in some ways, is artifice compared to what naturally occurs around me at my desk cover of the American Photo magazine at Sage Art Center. As a consequence is by Claire Cohen, an Art History major of my daily routine, coffee cups, memos, and Studio Art minor graduating this tool parts, notes, and CDs silt up around year. The postcards announcing the Senior me. Striving to recall all the events and Thesis exhibitions remind me of rich accomplishments of the year, I need only and convivial events in Hartnett, the Art shift my focus from my keyboard to the and Music Gallery and the Hungerford desk surface to be reminded. Building. (I taught the Senior Seminar this spring, so those postcards also remind The rolled T-shirts with a printed image me of late-night installations, painful of a groundhog overshadowing Sage are critiques and weeping). This year, we are set aside as gifts from the department graduating the largest class of majors in to any special guests we might have; the Department’s history: 18 studio Drive-By-Press printed them in the and 13 art historians. mobile studio with which they visited campus in the fall semester. A failed proposal to the Dean, residue Nicki Ditch’s sits adjacent to of my Caramel Macchiato, empty them, awaiting . A special grant Tupperware and a binder from the class I from The College and the Provost’s office taught last semester only prove that this made possible the purchase of student archive implies no hierarchy—only the work that will be distributed throughout breadth of endeavors undertaken, and campus this summer, and Nicki’s is one perhaps some end-of-semester lethargy. of these. An outdated instructional video on ‘new’ media awaits the arrival of Cary All the best in the year ahead! Peppermint, the new hired by our department. He will join the faculty in Allen the fall, at which time he may or may not allen topolski find humor in my gift. The image on the art & art history department chair

2 sage art center home of the studio arts program by stephanie ashenfelder studio coordinator

A language has developed here, fondly relationships between people are built here. referred to as ‘Sage Speak.’ If you are The building blocks of this community are fluent, you know where to find “The inclusiveness, trust and…well, candy. Meat Locker,” “The Fake Meat Locker” and “The Black Room,” and you likely Inclusiveness. Sage Art Center was know what to do if “Optimus Prime” is built in 1962, inspired by Crown Hall on misbehaving or if the “Situation” is out the IIT campus in Chicago. The celebrated of ink. The fact that Sage Art Center has modern architect, Mies Van der Rowe, its own language is important. It is an indication that in addition to art, authentic c o n t i n u e d ...

Students fill Sage’s staircase with aluminum foil and CDs for the new course Issues in Advanced 3D: Installation and Sound Art.

3 A sampling of work that can be seen during a typical walk through of Sage.

visit sage art center stay connected to the events that make life at Sage interesting & exciting: http://sageartcenter.com

built Crown Hall in 1956 at the height of works in an environment where trust is minimalist architecture. Sage echoes the the foundation. A space without walls and minimalism of Crown Hall in its glass and with glass windows means you are always steel façade and its open, expansive interior. on display. Naturally, there are moments Mies strived toward “architecture with a you would rather this not be the case. We minimal framework of structural order are all exposed because of the nature of the balanced against the implied freedom of architecture and because of what we do as free-flowing open space”. While the open artists. It is necessary that when you come floor plan at Sage might mean a to Sage, you trust that you can put yourself and a course meet at the same on display and will not be judged unfairly. time a mere 25 yards apart with no walls in between, it also means students in Candy. I have a candy dish on my desk all studio courses bump into each other to share. There is a printer on the front (sometimes literally). Courses and ideas desk for everyone to share. We share naturally cross-pollinate. A building classrooms and shops. If we wanted to without walls is inclusive. we could carve up Sage with dividers and walls so we wouldn’t have to share quite Trust. We ask students to put something so much. According to Mies, Crown Hall of themselves in their studio art in ways was the “clearest embodiment” of his belief they may not have to in other courses. that “structure is the essence of building.” Students have the courage to hang some Here the clearest embodiment of Sage, the part of themselves up on the wall and inclusiveness, the trust, and the sharing is then have their peers critique it. This only because of those who inhabit it.

4 undergraduate art history seniors in art history

Self-portrait, Claire Cohen, American Photo On Campus, Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2011

Claire Cohen recently was the runner up in the category of American Photo’s “Go Pro” contest and is featured on the cover of the American Photo On Campus April Issue. She is also featured on the contest’s website http://popphoto.com/goprowinners.

Emily Klie will be attending Ontario College of Art and Design in , CA next fall to pursue a M.F.A. in Criticism and Curatorial Practice. This year, she was also an Art Director for the annual Art Awake festival, which had over 500 art submissions and 1000 visitors.

Amelia Ann Titus is graduating with High Distinction, completing a thesis on the artist and the hardcore music performances of 1970’s Los Angeles. She interned at the Memorial in the fall and is currently working for Folio Literature Management Agency in . She hopes to pursue a career in publishing.

5 undergraduate studio art senior thesis exhibitions

Jenn Bratovich received a research in biomedical sciences at Rockefeller grant from the Susan B. Anthony Institute University in New York City. for Gender & Women’s Studies to complete her thesis work, clumsy/necessary. Daniel Neuner’s thesis exhibit, Closer This series of self-portrait Than We Notice, explores personal history estranges the process of dressing – or and memorializing the mundane through undressing – to explore inbetweenness, . awkwardness, and the permissions of looking. Sarah Rajotte’s thesis is based on a series of abstracted self-portraits conveying Jeremy Ferris’s The End and the themes of isolation and relatedness. Beginning of Constellation is an exercise Illuminated mechanical figures interact in unmediated creation and a reflection within the empty space they occupy; each upon the incidental results of this process. figure is constrained by specific challenges, Along with his BA, Jeremy will also be which are simultaneously humorous and receiving a BS in Brain & Cognitive extremely painful. Sciences. Cecilia Roxana Ramos is originally Liz Fleischman’s thesis is titled, from Peru; her artwork is inspired by her Remembering the Moment. “I feel closest to connection with her culture and roots. For my friends in the moments that we enjoy her thesis, titled Narrative Threads, she a comfortable silence together. However, created a series of Khipus (Incan recording it is difficult to keep these memories in devices) of her dreams and nightmares my mind. This show is an attempt to bringing back to life a long forgotten remember the important moments that artifact. define my friendships.” Christine Rose’s thesis Surround Emily Grzybowski is interested in deals with a variety of themes, including the way we define relationships and connections between the intangible and our position within them. Her work the physical, the ways in which we interact investigates those ambiguous spaces like with our world and with one another, and intimacy, the difference between self and the processes of making. She employs other, or how the same conversation can methods such as bookbinding, spinning, leave two people in completely different papermaking, and knitting, inviting the places. Next year she will pursue her PhD audience to interact with the work.

6 Thesis work by Emily Grzybowski (top), Christine Rose (right), and Jenn Bratovich (bottom).

Nicole Suchy’s work examines isolated moments and the failed attempts to reconstruct, alter, or preserve memory, absence, loss, and miscommunication. Often through distance, relationships are obsessively recreated solidifying all of the moments we fear losing. Through prints and artists books, Suchy explores the secrets and struggles lying behind objects, moments, and words.

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7 Above by Jeremy Ferris for the 2011 Senior Thesis promotional poster. Below Thesis work by Ceclia Roxana Ramos.

Stephanie Tabb’s thesis , titled Constructing Space, explores the relationship between complex structures and simple shapes through photography and film. This coming fall, she will pursue a MA at California College of .

Juanita Jenny Viera’s thesis exhibition, We’ve Lost the Meaning displays different mechanisms used to cope with or create balance in the unsteadiness that comes from our lives. We make to-do lists, take photographs, create measurements of time and beauty, and engage in romantic relationships to find relevance and salvation.

8 i n t e r v i e w david walsh by alicia inez guzman vcs graduate student

David Walsh is Professor of Alicia Guzman Can you start off by Art History and History at the talking about how you became interested University of Rochester. He in medieval ecclesiastic architecture? What brought you to the architecture at recently co-edited a two-volume Cluny? book with two scholars, Neil Stratford and Brigitte Maurice- David Walsh While working on the excavation of Bordesley Abbey in the Chabard titled Corpus de la West Midlands of England (I’ve done de Cluny: Les parties research there since 1972), our team was orientales de la Grande Eglise visited by Neil Stratford of the British Cluny III, published by Picard Museum. As part of the visit I showed him my architectural reconstructions of Press in Paris. Professor Walsh the church. Later he invited me to his will be retiring this year after 40 office in the British Museum where he years in the department. asked if I would like to take part in a new project involving the Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy ( it was founded in 910 CE and became the largest monastery in Western Europe by the 12th century). The church and surrounding monastic buildings had largely been destroyed following the French Revolution; only one major portion was still standing. Excavations of this vast site were undertaken by the American archeologist Kenneth John Conant between 1928 and 1950; Conant published very little of the actual excavation, but made elaborate reconstructions in a paper published in 1968. Stratford felt that the excavations should also be published and more material gathered to create a new monographic treatment of Cluny. I was to write on Conant, describe and draw thousands of fragments found by him, analyze the fragments, and reconstruct

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9 some parts of the church. I received a Much of my support came from the grant from the National Endowment for National Endowment, which was very the Humanities and began work in 1988. gracious about publishing the text in French. This work is invaluable for my AG This publication, Corpus de la own teaching, which has always been sculpture de Cluny: Les parties orientales both art historical and archaeological; the de la Grande Eglise Cluny III, culminates multidisciplinary approach was reflected in from nearly twenty years of writing and all my courses. field work. Can you tell me about the project’s trajectory and talk about the AG I know that you have a background challenges and advantages of working in Studio Art and have even taught with Neil Stratford and Brigitte Maurice- a few studios classes. In fact, your Chabard, scholars from England and architectural and sculptural France respectively? How did this featured prominently throughout the book experience influence your work here in the alongside your writings. Together they department of Art and Art History? bring up interesting questions about the multiple ways you have “rendered” history, DW We calculated that the project so to speak. I’m interested in how you would take 5 years; it took 20 just for the mediated between writing the text and eastern parts of the church. The logistics creating the drawings and how you saw of working from three countries with the relationship between the two. each person writing a different part of the book usually meant more than one trip a DW Although the kind of archaeological year from Neil Stratford and myself. Our I did for the book was not objective was a synthesis of archaeology, taught in my , Maryland architectural history and an extensive Institute in Baltimore, I still developed study of documents. Many years of work a fascination with visual analysis and went by before we could integrate our representation of form, which are efforts. Although our efforts along with fundamental to my interests now. Classes those of specialists in geology and material at the Institute were mostly concerned conservation proved fruitful, all work was with painting and, much later in my time consuming beyond expectations. In career, the ability to represent architecture addition to writing, I did virtually all of and landscape served me well. On the page layouts while executing a couple archaeological sites I made various of thousand drawings. Stratford worked types of illustrations including graphic on texts and did the photographs as well projections of architecture. I also rendered as visual analysis, while Chabard studied architectural fragments for publication. the late medieval remains and assessed the Very much to my surprise, both artists and evidence of paving. Of course there were members of academic disciplines (history, some difficulties synthesizing work across art history, anthropology and even many fields and the discussions became engineering) were often enthusiastic about heated at times, but our work nonetheless both aspects of my work (what the French led to one of the most comprehensive call the artistic and scientific) of my work. studies of the building ever. None of this What I found most important about could have been accomplished without drawing was not the illustration itself, the support of the French academic but the questions posed when one has to establishment, the French government, understand form and structure. When and of course, the excellent professional I draw, I have to think, and many of my services of the publisher, Picard of Paris. discoveries were made while drawing.

10 department of art & art history hartnett gallery by rachel bender hartnett gallery committee documentarian

The Hartnett Gallery featured five exhibitions this year, which were selected by the 2009-2010 undergraduate committee and graduate advisors. The current committee is made up of Toniane Picozzo (Undergraduate Director), Rachel Kelemen (Installation Director) Steffi Duarte (Business Manager), Janelle Sandefur (Administrative Assistant), Nathaly Luna (Event Planner), Colleen Kaster (Graphic PR Director) and Jenn Bratovich (Media PR Director). The gallery relied on Rachel Bender, Sarah Karp, Emily Klie, and Palida Noor throughout the year for additional support. Jessica McDonald served another year as the Graduate Director for Hartnett Gallery, and Kyoung-Lae Kang, Genevieve Waller and Zach Rottman Up (in)securities and served as graduate assistants for the gallery exchange, Heather F. throughout 2010 & 2011. Wetzel, Hartnett Gallery.

Next Page Installation Artist Neal W. Cox’s Variations on of Meg Mitchell’s the Platonic Solids kicked off our first Visualizing Difference: exhibition in September. Cox’s works used Birds of a Feather at Hartnett Gallery. a pinhole to collect an ‘ordered sample of light.’ The exhibitions included five pinhole , many photographic compositions and a large ‘geodesic dome’ camera.

The next exhibit, which opened over Meliora Weekend, was titled (in)securities

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11 and exchange by Heather F. Wetzel. Wetzel The Modern Day Diana by Margaret used the nineteenth-century photographic LeJeune held viewers’ attention in March processes of the slide on and April with the artist’s thought handmade paper to address themes about provoking photographs. LeJeune the use and visibility of money in the art photographed female hunters from all over world. Wetzel mounted light boxes onto the United States in their homes. While the wall that could then be operated by focusing on the attributes of the Roman viewers with a dimmer switch. Through goddess Diana, such as the bow and arrow, dimming, watermarks became visible on hunting dogs, and stag and animal pelts, images of the everyday. Also, as part of the the exhibition also questioned how these exhibit, handmade ‘bucks’ could be taken women claim domestic spaces as well as a home in exchange for a dollar. place in the world of hunting.

Spring 2011 began with Visualizing The 2010-2011 year concluded with Acute Difference: Birds of a Feather by Meg Triangulation: The Annual Undergraduate Mitchell, which was by far the most Juried Exhibition. The show exhibited a intensive installation of the year. Mitchell variety of work selected by guest juror meshed science, information technology, Colleen Buzzard, a visual artist from and the natural world by mapping avian Rochester, NY. Additionally the Hartnett genome data as spiraling sculptural forms. Gallery committee selected the artists for Her site-specific exhibition was based on next year’s exhibitions after going through the physical genome visualizations of birds numerous submissions. The gallery native to the Rochester/Lake Ontario cosponsored a First Friday event with region. Visualizing Difference lent scientific the Art and Art History Undergraduate subject matter a new playful context, giving Council, visiting Booksmart Studio, the viewer a into the natural world Fourwalls Gallery, Visual Studies through information technology. Workshop, and Rochester Contemporary.

12 misty rubric: the vcs graduate holiday show

Shota Ogawa and Izul Zulkarnain speak with Douglas Crimp at the opening reception for Misty Rubric in Hartnett Gallery.

In December 2010, VCS graduate students Ryan Conrath, Abigail Glogower, Shota Ogawa, Ryan Randall, Zachary Rottman, Genevieve Waller, and Lina Zigelyte visit hartnett gallery mounted a group exhibition titled Misty Rubric: The VCS Graduate Holiday Show stay connected to the events and exhibits at at the Hartnett Gallery. The show featured Hartnett Gallery: book art, , installation, sculpture, https://blogs.rochester.edu/hartnett/ and video.

13 department of art & art history faculty updates

Elizabeth Cohen organized and led and festival, winning the Blurb Portfolio a presentation about the Art New York Award for the Best New Idea. Soon after, Program at the dinner for the University’s the work “Geolocation” was shown at and Arts, Sciences and Engineering National acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Council. It was presented in the Spring of Houston. Simultaneously, it was in a group 2010 by Cohen and four current students invitational show at the Houston Center in the Art Studio Program: Nicole for Photography and featured in Spot Suchy, Manabu Yahagi, Lauren Graves Magazine. In the fall, the collaborative and Spenser Holstein. Cohen’s artwork work was featured on NPR Marketplace was included in the exhibition, and in the Washington Post. This [raising humans] at Buzzer Thirty Gallery winter Marni and Nate traveled to the in Long Island City, NY. Center of Las Vegas for a solo show, and then completed a brief Heather Layton was the first artist to residency in Palm Springs for a solo show be invited to the tribal state of Nagaland, of new work, Geolocation:Desertscapes at India, where she had a solo exhibition, the Marks Art Center, a gallery run by Lisa Parables for a Compassionate Revolution Soccio, VCS alum and faculty member at and gave two artist lectures, the first at the College of the Desert. Nagaland University in Lumami and the second at Dream Café in Kohima. She Allen C. Topolski continues his efforts was awarded an S.O.S. grant through the to increase on River Campus; New York Foundation for the Arts for this with assistance from The College and the work. She had a solo painting exhibition at Provost, Topolski established a selection the Colacino Gallery at Nazareth College process that purchased student work to be in Rochester, NY, and a two-person framed and installed throughout campus. exhibition, Preparing to Lose, at Hallwalls Reimagining the Distaff Toolkit, a group Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY exhibition that includes Topolski’s work, continues to travel across the U.S. An Marni Shindelman started this year with invitation for a solo exhibition at Buffalo a residency for the Format Foto Festival Arts Studio, a non-profit arts organization, in the UK, along with her collaborator will have Topolski in his studio most of the Nate Larson. They revisited in March summer up through September when the for the show Right Here: Right Now show opens.

14 Above Papermaking demo held at Sage by Heather F. Wetzel in conjunction with her exhibition at Hartnett Gallery.

Right Visitors standing near Palida Noor’s installtion at an opening reception for Advanced Painting.

Greg Nanney of Newark, NJ and Steven Prochyra (plaid) of Denver, CO print t-shirts during University of Rochester’s Sagefest, October 18, 2010. Their company, Drive By Press, was created in 2005 when two artists and printmakers who met in graduate school made it their mission to share their enthusiasm for printmaking with audiences everywhere. They loaded their 600 pound 14th century style printing press in the back of their vehicle and took off across the country and have been on the road ever since. The two, dubbed kings of DIY printmaking, have now traveled over 100,000 miles spreading ink and their style of guerilla art making at events across America. Photo: J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester

15 Above Gloria Kim and VCS alum Aubrey Anable

Right Douglas Crimp and Lynne Cook after the Craig Owens Lecture.

16 the graduate program in visual & cultural studies director’s update by a. joan saab director of the vcs graduate program

Greetings. What a year!

Since I was on academic leave during the Fall, I asked students to send me notice of awards or honors that they received this past year. I was blown away by the response (and quickly realized that there are far too many to list here --see the I would like to take this opportunity graduate student note section and you to thank Rachel Haidu for her leadership will understand). This year VCS grad of the Program while I was on sabbatical. students have given papers at national While I may not have been as productive and international conferences, received as I would have liked while on leave (is grants from granting agencies, and have anyone?) Rachel was both productive and been published in leading journals. They successful in her term as Acting Director: have curated gallery shows, taught classes teaching the first-year colloquium, around the globe, and received awards and organizing the Reni Celeste and Craig honors from all sorts of impressive places. Owens lectures, and providing the It is both exciting and gratifying to read necessary guidance for the program to through all of these honors and awards— run smoothly. I know I am not alone and while I am overwhelmed, I must say, I when I thank her for her guidance, am not surprised. We continue to attract professionalism, and generosity of spirit. outstanding and brilliant students to the The intellectual energy of our Core and program and our alumni continue to Affiliated Faculty, our graduate students, impress. Indeed, this year we held alumni and our alumni, continue to make the events at the College Art Association Visual and Cultural Studies Program such and the Society for Media and Cinema a rewarding place to work and think! Studies annual conferences. The VCS grad students hosted a thought-provoking and Have a great summer, everyone! professional conference, “Making Sense of Visual Culture.” VCS students, alumni Joan and faculty continue to lead and shape the field of Visual Culture Studies as it evolves a. joan saab and grows. director of the vcs graduate program

17 i n t e r v i e w rachel haidu by berin golonu vcs graduate student

Rachel Haidu is Berin Golonu Was it difficult making Associate Professor in the the transition from a background in Department of Art and Art Art History to teaching in a Visual and Cultural Studies program? What are the History and the Graduate benefits and challenges of indisciplinarity Program in Visual and Cultural as opposed to a more traditional Art Studies. She received her History program? PhD from Columbia University Rachel Haidu The benefits have been in 2003, and began extraordinary, in that VCS grad students teaching at the University of have been consistently challenging the Rochester the following fall. basic assumptions I’ve held as an art Her book, The Absence of historian. I can’t say that I have adequately responded to those challenges, but Work: Marcel Broodthaers, certainly as I move forward, defining new 1964-1976, was published projects, and as I work more and more as by MIT Press in Fall 2010. a critic, students’ voices and the kinds of questions they ask themselves resound in my own questions and the kinds of works that interest me. The interdisciplinarity of my colleagues’ work is extremely impressive to me, and I try to respond to that—to whatever degree I can—in my own work. It’s hard for me to compare this experience I know so intimately to that of teaching in an art history program, which I only did as a grad student. The worry that art is not going to be interesting to my students has been a significant factor in every stage of course planning and teaching—it’s a curse and a blessing.

BG In the spring semester you designed and taught a popular (and full) course titled “Advanced Histories and Theories of Photography.” In the course syllabus

18 you are careful to note: “This course is whose project in Aubervilliers in 2004 structured around the idea that there is no was the subject of a couple of essays such thing as a .” and lectures. It was great not only to get Would it be better to pluralize this history away from Broodthaers as a subject but and call it histories of photography? How also to start working with a different is your approach to studying these histories temporality—a “live” art project I could different in such a course? revisit daily in person, a live artist I could actually speak to (I had interviewed RH It would be great to call it histories Hirschhorn before, on the occasion of of photography—as in the title—but it’s a show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery). really the case that photography’s history Ultimately, the process of turning your is split at every single moment that we dissertation into a book means you don’t attempt to isolate it. If you take a single ever leave its original framework, as instant like FSA photography, you have the piece of scholarship in which you photo’s social and even governmental conceived the terms of your possible functionalization, its relationship to text, its intervention into a particular discourse as relationship to architecture, to portraiture, a graduate student. Conceiving a second even to still life. You have the history of book now, I see how different it is; the American socialism in the 1930s, the project itself is an intervention, and the welfare state, lateral relations to other ways terms by which you define it come very of defining American identity, and on and naturally from things you’ve been thinking on. Photography as such disappears in each about while working on all kinds of other of these relationships just as it helps form topics. It’s the opposite of the kind of tight these other entities: it is part of the welfare focus that’s required for a dissertation, state and how it works, even if it also though I often think that the process VCS hides behind that relation. So to pursue grads go through to define a dissertation “the” histories of photography would be to that is between disciplines has qualities of ignore how multiple every incident within this “second book” process. photography is. Drawing attention—to a very limited degree—to that multiplicity is BG How did you pick Broodthaers as the what I try to achieve in the course. topic for your dissertation? I know one of your former professors, Benjamin Buchloh, BG Your newly published and very has also written extensively on his work. well received book on the Belgian artist Did his interest in Broodthaers influence Broodthaers was your dissertation project your own approach? at Columbia University. You’ve mentioned before that it took two years to revisit RH It was actually Rosalind Krauss who your dissertation after completing it. Can proposed the topic to me, after I’d written you expand upon the process of turning on Broodthaers for a seminar she taught a dissertation into a book, and offer some while working through the “post-medium advice on how best undertake this process? condition.” I don’t think that without that initial impetus I would have had the RH Over the course of those two years, I guts to propose it to Benjamin. I then wrote about other artists such as Gerhard Richter, then on Thomas Hirschhorn, c o n t i n u e d ...

19 worked through many ideas with him in about the public have been developed the two-semester seminar sequence he within ideas about interiority. Psychic teaches on Postwar European Art, and interiority emerges in the work of also throughout the process of handing Sharon Hayes; domestic interiors make in and revising each chapter. Ultimately an appearance in the work of Chantal it was much, much harder to dismiss or Akerman; and an abstracted idea of the even argue with some of his interpretations interior that is simultaneously reflected than I had initially thought: they return off of ideas of the nation and that of with force when you engage the work a “laboratory” is apparent in the work over a long period of time. Nonetheless, I of Artur Zmijewski, especially in his think we disagree on some fundamental examination of history or an historical issues in Broodthaers’s work, and that is its experiment like state socialism. In addition own relief as well as a continuing source to the new book project, I am writing of curiosity about this artist who is so catalog essays for exhibitions on the works resistant to interpretation. of Sol LeWitt and James Coleman, and giving a couple of upcoming talks. I am BG You mentioned that you’re now lecturing on the work of Yvonne Rainer working on a second book? and Martha Rosler in Brussels and speaking about the relationship between RH Yes, it’s titled The Public Inside. It the work of Broodthaers and Liliana has to do with the practice, which I argue Porter, to accompany an exhibition at the has developed alongside the emphasis on New Museum in New York, opening in participatory or public art, in which ideas Summer 2011.

Participants at the roundtable on the photography of Edward Curtis, one of the events of the “Parallax Effects” Humanities Project in March. Left to right: Professor Janet Berlo, VCS grad student Jessica McDonald, Native Joe Horse Capture, art history student Carlie Fishgold, and Native art specialist Jonathan Holstein.

20 visual & cultural studies theatres of memory New Perspectives on Edward Curtis’s North American Indian by alexander brier marr vcs graduate student

On March 2, 2011, an exhibit of Edward parts, a historiographic account of the Curtis photographs, titled Theaters of pictures and a series of short essays written Memory: New Perspectives on Edward either by Janet Berlo, VCS grad students Curtis’ North American Indian, opened Alicia Guzman, Jessica Horton, me, in the library of Rare Books and Special or undergraduate Carlie Fishgold. Joe Collections at the University of Rochester. Horse Capture (A’aninin/White Clay The exhibit accompanied a Humanities People), Associate Curator of Native Project spearheaded by Professors Janet North American Art at the Minneapolis Berlo and Eleana Kim, titled Parallax Institute of Art spoke at the roundtable Effects: Representations of Native North for the exhibit opening. Janet Berlo and Americans Then and Now. The exhibit at Jessica McDonald (VCS PhD candidate the Rare Books Library was a collaborative and photo historian) joined Joe in probing venture, co-curated by undergraduate art the ethics and of Curtis’ historian Carlie Fishgold and myself, with photographs. the generous help of the director and staff of the Rare Books Library.

The exhibit culled photogravures from a rare edition of Curtis’s lifework, a richly illustrated twenty-volume book called The North American Indian. Indeed, Curtis produced some of the most iconic and controversial images of Native North Americans. He produced about 230 copies between 1907 and 1930. The then sold subscriptions to libraries and wealthy individuals, including Hiram Watson Sibley, whose pristine edition now resides in the Rare Books Library. Janet Berlo and Alex Marr Theaters of Memory consists of two preparing for Theaters of Memory.

21 22 visual & cultural studies vcs faculty updates

Professor Janet Berlo enjoying the glaciers of southern Alaska while lecturing on a U of R alumni cruise, June 2010.

Janet Catherine Berlo co-authored, programming for the “Parallax Effects” with VCS doctoral candidate Mara Humanities Project. Gladstone, “The Body in the (White) Box: Corporeal Ethics and Museum Douglas Crimp received a Creative Representation,” in Routledge Companion Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics Grant for Before Pictures, his memoir for the Twenty-First Century Museum of New York in the 1970s. With Lynne published in 2011. Janet’s invited essay, Cooke, he curated Mixed Use, Manhattan “Navajo Cosmoscapes: Up, Down, at the Reina Sofia in Madrid during the Within,” was published in the Spring summer of 2010; he gave lectures about the 2011 issue of Smithsonian Journal of exhibition in Buenos Aires and Cordoba, American Art. In April, she gave a lecture Argentina, and at the Public Art Fund on Native American fakes and forgeries at and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Washington University, and a lecture on in New York City. His essay on Trisha Plains Indian clothing and culture at the Brown was the cover article of the January Missouri History Museum. With Eleana Kim in Anthropology, she oversaw all c o n t i n u e d ...

23 2011 Artforum and one on Warhol’s films Visiting Professor in the Department of featured in the special Warhol issue of Social Anthropology at the University of October. He wrote a catalogue essay for Cambridge, England. the Tacita Dean exhibition at MUMOK in Vienna, one on for Rachel Haidu has published reviews in PhotoEspaña in Madrid, and one on dance caa.reviews, Texte zur Kunst, Artforum, and and film in the 1960s and 70s for the Art Journal, in addition to her book The Centre Pompidou in Paris. Absence of Work (see interview). Last May, she participated in a roundtable on Marcel Paul Duro was invited to speak at Broodthaers’ Cinema at the University of “Repetition, Emulation, and Innovation,” Chicago, and in November gave a talk at a roundtable held at the University of the in Warsaw California at Riverside/California Institute on the work of Wlodzimierz Borowski. of Technology in January 2011. He co- In January, Rachel interviewed Gerhard convened a two-part session, “Imitation, Richter for an essay for his upcoming Copy, Reproduction, Replication, retrospective, and this summer she will Repetition, and Appropriation” at the complete catalogue essays on the works of College Art Association annual conference Sol LeWitt and James Coleman. She is in NYC in February 2011. Paul published giving a talk this May in Brussels on the “Great and Noble Ideas of the Moral Kind: work of Yvonne Rainer and Martha Rosler, Joseph Wright of Derby and the Scientific and another on Broodthaers and Liliana Sublime” in the September 2010 issue Porter, to accompany an exhibit at the New of Art History. Currently he is engaged Museum. in a study on the origins of originality in eighteenth-century art and theory. Joan Saab is currently working on a multi-media book titled Searching for Robert Foster received fellowships Siqueiros. The project traces the history from NEH and the American Council of and visual citation of the Mexican Learned Societies, supporting academic muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros’ America leave for 2011-12. He will write a Tropical over the past 100 years to cultural biography of the P.G. Black discuss the politics of re-appropriation, Collection of Pacific Islands objects at the the performative aspects of socially Buffalo Museum of Science. Opening in committed art, and changing notions of September, his co-curated exhibit, Journeys site specificity. She presented sections from to Papua, will consider five collectors’ trips this project at the annual meetings of the to Papua New Guinea between the 1890s American Studies Association, The College and 1990s. During the summer, he will Art Association, and the Society for participate in, “Markets, Materiality and Cinema and Media Studies. Last summer Consumer Practices,” at the Centre for she spent a month as a NEH Fellow at Critical and Cultural Studies, University the Vectors Institute at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. The workshop of Southern California learning how to will engage issues addressed in his use the online publication suite, Scalar. publication, Coca-Globalization: Following She hopes Searching for Siquieros will be Soft Drinks from New York to New Guinea published by the University of California (2008). In the fall, he will be a Wyse Press in 2012.

24 still evolving: the “on-film” series

In the fall of 2009, VCS students Ryan Conrath, Shota Ogawa, and Zainab Saleh organized Walls on Film, which brought together three works dealing, in their own peculiar ways, with “walls.” With the generous support of various departments, programs, and individuals, they followed up that initial effort with Landscape on Film (Spring 2010), and again with Mapping on Film (Fall 2010).

Debuted in April of 2011, Departure on Film will further the group’s mission of offering to the University of Rochester community the opportunity to see important and rarely screened works “on film.” This spring, the series welcomed VCS student Zach Rottman as a programmer.

www.rochester.edu/college/aah/onfilm

visit “on film” stay connected to events and screenings https://www.rochester.edu/college/onfilm

25 visual & cultural studies vcs student updates

Interpretive Dance by Amanda Graham and Alicia Guzman at the Sol Lewitt Exhibition, Albright Knox, Buffalo.

Amanda Graham taught the class contemporain des Laurentides, Montreal. “OffThe Wall: The Art of Participation” through The Rochester College Writing Berin Golonu worked on freelance Program. Over winter break, she traveled writing and curatorial projects while to New York City to do archival research completing her coursework this year. at The Brooklyn Academy of Music, She co-curated the group exhibition funded by a Susan B. Anthony Graduate Recipes for an Encounter at the Dorsky Research Grant. This June she will return Gallery in Long Island City (September to NYC to continue dissertation research 12—November 14, 2010). Based on a thanks to a Walter Read Hovey Memorial book published in 2009 co-edited with Fund Award. In March, Amanda’s Candice Hopkins, and Marisa Jahn, essay “Abstract Division: Tracing Nadia the exhibition showcased instruction- Myre’s Scar Trajectory” appeared in the based work by artists and other cultural catalogue Nadia Myre: Symbology published practitioners. Berin also published articles by Galerie Art Mûr and Musée d’art in , Art Papers, and Modern

26 Painter. In the Spring, she presented a the Fall 2010. In December, he defended paper on the of Mona Hatoum his dissertation “Unthinking the National at SBAI’s Gender and Women’s Studies Imaginary: The Singular Cinema of Abbas Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. Kiarostami.” His “Neither Victims, Nor Heroines: Kiarostami’s Feminist Turn Alicia Inez Guzman attended SITE in 10” is published in the Spring Issue Santa Fe’s Eighth International Biennial of the journal Situations: Project of the in the Summer of 2010 and later published Radical Imagination. “A Brief History of a review in Modern Painter. In March, Area Studies and International Studies” she presented a paper titled “Archiving appears in a special summer issue of Arab Absence: Ken Gonzalez-Day and Studies Quarterly for which he is also a California’s History of Lynching” at the co-editor. Hossein served as the co-chair National Association of Chicana and of the Society for Film and Media Studies Chicano Studies in Pasadena, California. Middle East Caucus March 2011. Alicia received an Arttable summer award and will be working at the San José In October, Gloria Kim was invited by Museum of Art on an exhibit titled Beyond the Health Humanities Committee at St. Mexicanidad. John Fisher College to deliver her paper “The Visual Construction of Emergency” Jessica L. Horton traveled with an at Panics and Pandemics: The Continuing SBAI research grant in 2010 to the Legacy of George Goler. She taught Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe. the seminar, “A Tweet A Day Keeps Her review of SITE Santa Fe’s Eighth the Doctor Away: New Media and the International Biennial was featured in caa. Medical Relationship,” in the Division of reviews. She was invited to participate in Medical Humanities at the University of the workshop “Nations in the History of Rochester School of Medicine. At the Art” held at the University of Toronto and Society for Cinema and Media Studies in the University of East Anglia. Jessica’s March, Gloria presented, “Animal essay, “Alone on the Snow, Alone on Traces: Managing the Frontiers of the the Beach: ‘A Global Sense of Place’ in Human in Zoonotic Diseases.” She Atanarjuat and Fountain,” is forthcoming was awarded a dissertation completion in the Journal of Transnational American fellowship for 2011-2012 from the Studies. Her essay, “A Shore Without Andrew W. Mellon /American Council of a Horizon: Locating as Looking Learned Societies. Anew,” is forthcoming in Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Godfre Leung spent the last year Art. She also enjoyed a SBAI teaching teaching Art History at the Ontario fellowship. This summer she will be a College of Art and Design. In the fall, resident at the Terra Foundation for he and Sohl Lee co-edited “Spectacle American Art in Giverny. East Asia,” a special issue of Invisible Culture. He published reviews of Christine Hossein Khosrowjah taught a Mehring’s Blinky Palermo: Abstraction sociology course titled “Fragmented of an Era and Suzanne Hudson’s Used Identities” and an “Introduction to Film Art” class at St. John Fisher College in c o n t i n u e d ...

27 Party held at Rachel Haidu’s after Lynne Cook’s lecture.

Paint: Robert Ryman in the spring issue of Alex Brier Marr participated in both Invisible Culture. Leung also published a the Otsego Institute for Native American review titled “Yves Klein: With the Void, Art History at the Fenimore Full Powers” in Afterimage. and the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology at the National Museum Nicola Mann published articles in The of Natural History in the summer of Brock Review, Proteus: A Journal of Ideas 2010. He presented a paper, “Shaping and Afterimage this year. In March, she and Cheyenne Memory: Haunting and Politics Vicky Pass co-edited an issue of Invisible in Howling Wolf ’s Prison Drawings” Culture. Since November 2010, she has at the Cornell Graduate contributed to a review blog produced Conference and at the Indigenous by the British art and culture magazine, Storytellers Conference at the University Aesthetica. She defended her dissertation of Buffalo. In July 2011 he will present in early April. In July Nicola will present this research at the University of Kent’s work at the First Annual London Film Native Studies Research Network. As part and Media conference at the University of of Parallax Effects Humanities Project, London. Alex co-curated Theatres of Memory: New

28 Perspectives on Edward Curtis’s The North Genevieve Waller’s studio work was American Indian. at the UR Rare Books featured in two solo exhibitions: Targets Library. and Monstrances, at the Edward G. Miner Library Gallery and Miss Havisham’s Jessica S. McDonald received a 2011 Charming Gloom, in the Mercer Gallery Research Fellowship at Window Project Space in downtown the Center for Creative Photography in Rochester. She also participated in two Tucson, Arizona, and participated in a group exhibitions, The Art of Adornment, roundtable discussion at the exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum and She, Theatres of Memory: New Perspectives at the Steckline Gallery at Newman on Edward Curtis’s The North American University both in Wichita, Kansas. Indian. She co-taught a graduate course She presented a paper entitled “Disco, in the History of Photography at George Camp, Female Singers, and Gay Men” at Eastman House, and is Reviews Editor for the VCS conference “Making Sense of the journal Photography & Culture. Visual Culture.” Genevieve was awarded an artist’s residency for summer 2011 at Lucy Mulroney passed her qualifying Soaring Gardens in . exams in fall 2010. She also spent a week listening to audiotapes at the Warhol During the summer of 2010, Cesare Museum in Pittsburgh, interviewed the Wright produced and directed a editor of ’s “unedited” novel, national commercial campaign for and discovered her love of cumbia. Gracie Bullyproof, a program designed to help kids cope with the physical and Jenevieve Nykolak presented a paper psychological pressures of bullying. In on David Wojnarowicz’s “Rimbaud In January he also directed the Gracie Women New York, 1978-79” series at the 18th Empowered series, a self-defense and rape Annual Gender and Women’s Studies prevention program for women. Based Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, on his work with Women Empowered, he “Precarious Spaces: (Dis-)Locating is currently involved with the Kino-Eye Gender.” Center to develop a feature documentary and corresponding university course Shota Ogawa started a Japanese- series addressing issues of violence language blog about Dryden Theater with against women. He also organized with Daisuke Kawahara, successfully organized the help of a federal grant an education the “On-Film” series, and passed his and arts outreach initiative aimed at qualifying exams. Shota presented a paper creating working academic partnerships on Oshima Nagisa’s Death by Hanging at between urban universities and inner-city the Film & History conference in the Fall. communities. He presented other research on Korean- Japanese director Pak Sunam at the Bo Zheng’s “Creating Publicness: Association for Asian Studies Conference. From the Stars Event to Recent Socially Over the summer Shota will conduct Engaged Art” was published in the research in Japan with the help of Susan B. September 2010 issue of Yishu Journal of Anthony Institute’s Research Grant. Contemporary Chinese Art.

29 a n o t e f r o m magda szczesniak fulbright visiting researcher, institute of polish culture, university of warsaw.

I decided to spend my 9-month Fulbright research grant in VCS because of its interdisciplinary character, renowned faculty, and amazing community of young scholars. And I was not disappointed! Working with Douglas Crimp, Paul Duro, Rachel Haidu and Sharon Willis was immensely helpful in developing my dissertation. Organizing the “Making Sense of Visual Culture” conference, preparing the “November Questionnaire” and participating in the roundtables allowed me to reevaluate my own investments in VCS, and made me feel like part of the graduate student community. I presented a paper at the Above Magda Szczesniak at Misty Rubric: VCS Association in San Antonio, Texas in Graduate Holiday Show. April. The most important outcome of my visit to Rochester was the truly amazing Down Wine tasting and rewarding friendships which I hope high kick. will result in long lasting intellectual and personal exchanges.

30 in the news

Carl Chiarenza, now Professor Emeritus, was the Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History and Artist-in-Residence from 1986-98. Selected works from Chiarenza’s career will be exhibited at College of the Desert’s Marks Art Center in Palm Springs, California. The exhibition titled Pictures Come from Pictures follows the recent publication of a book of his work by the same name in conjunction with the exhibition Peace Warriors and Solitudes: Recent Photographs by Carl Chiarenza at the University of Richmond. His work has been exhibited in over 80 solo shows and over 260 group exhibitions, and is in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the J. Paul Getty Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Renowned photographer and VCS alum (1996), Walid Raad is the recipient of the 2011 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. The Hasselblad Center at the Gothenburg Museum of Art, , will exhibit his work in November 2011. In addition to the exhibit, Raad will also be receiving $150,000. Prior winners include , Robert Adams, , and Cindy Sherman. According to a foundation statement, “Walid Raad is one of the most original and singular contemporary artists using photography. He has been widely acclaimed for his project The Atlas Group, in which Raad generated original ideas about the relationship between , archive, and history.”

31 awards

2011 graduate awards

The Celeste Heughes Bishop Award Jessica Horton, Alexander Brier Marr, Izul Zulkarnain, Ryan Conrath

From Daniel Neuner’s senior thesis exhibition Closer Than We Notice.

2011 undergraduate awards

Elizabeth M. Anderson Prize Roger Mertin Prize for Claire H. Cohen Excellence in Studio Art Yang You Daniel Steven Neuner Elizabeth Regina Slupinski Department of Art & Purchase Prize Art History Prize Robert McDavid Jenn Bratovich

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